West Brom need their mercurial strikeforce to be a hit in 2014-15, or else they will face a struggle to maintain their Premier League status

Big signing: West Brom are believed to have paid £10 million for Nigeria international Brown Ideye

West Brom's strikeforce of Stephane Sessegnon, Victor Anichebe and Brown Ideye cost £20million to put together. This season they need to show they're worth it.

Baggies supporters have had an interesting time in the last two years, to say the least.

Steve Clarke arrived as head coach in the summer of 2012 following England-bound Roy Hodgson's departure and took to the job like the proverbial duck to water, leading the Baggies to eighth position on a shoestring budget in his first season.

However, the former Chelsea and Liverpool number two was sacked last December after a miserable calender year in which he'd won just 20% of his league matches. Fans were split on whether he should stay but owner Jeremy Peace was ruthless.

Peace, who has controlled the purse-strings at the Midlands club for over a decade now, brought in Pepe Mel, but the Spaniard failed to settle and left once the 2013-14 campaign was over. Albion had fallen to 17th, winning just seven games in 38 matches.

Into the breach has come former Everton academy manager Alan Irvine, the 55-year-old who was assistant to David Moyes at Everton for five years and then manager at Sheffield Wednesday and

The warning signs had been there. Strikers Romelu Lukaku, Shane Long and Peter Odemwingie had accounted for 30 of their 53 league goals when Clarke led them to eighth, their highest league finish since the days of Ron Atkinson.

However, within eight months they had all had departed. Lukaku's loan had expired, bad-boy Odemwingie had been sold to Cardiff during the off-season, and Long's on-off move to Hull City was finally being completed in January 2014.

In their place came replacements who basically failed.

Nicolas Anelka was the premier name, but scored in only one match before leaving under a Qu'enelle-shaped cloud, while loanee Matej Vydra - prolific at Watford in the Championship the previous year - struggled for form and fitness. Youngster Saido Berahino was the only one who showed glimpses of quality, scoring five times.

The fleet-footed Stephane Sessegnon arrived from Sunderland for a then-club record, but scored just five goals in 26 games and had a hit-and-miss debut season in the Midlands, while Victor Anichebe cost £6million from Everton and netted on three occasions.

The man in charge of those signings was sporting and technical director Richard Garlick, who had replaced Dan Ashworth following his move to the FA. Peace's director of football model has worked in recent years, providing stability after the yo-yo years that followed the Millennium, but replacing Ashworth proved difficult.

The signings have yet to prove value for money and Garlick has seen his role watered down.

Terry Burton has stepped into the breach as technical director, and the first cash transaction since his arrival is the £10million signing of Ideye from Dynamo Kiev.

Quick and powerful and with an eye for goal, the Nigeria international takes the number nine shirt at the Hawthorns, worn with distinction through the years by the likes of 'The King' Jeff Astle and Cyrille Regis.

However, he arrives from Ukraine having made just seven league starts last season, with Dutch international Jeremain Lens and Congolese star Dieumerci Mbokani preferred. This actually cost Ideye his place in Nigeria's World Cup squad.

The 25-year-old has a touch of Emmanuel Adebayor about him. On his day he's a nightmare for defenders, but his showings for both club and his country leave you wondering whether those days come around often enough.

After finishing eighth in 2012-13, Peace declared: "The club is probably a mid-table Championship club that is massively over-performing."

The Hawthorns head honcho will be hoping that his new big-money signing can fire the goals necessary for another season of over-performance. He'll certainly be hoping that having opened his wallet to the tune of over £20million on three big-money forwards in the last 12 months, he sees a considerable return in the upcoming campaign.

Without their three mercurial African internationals firing, goals could prove hard to come by in the new term. And that could push the Baggies to return to their previous existence as English football's premier yo-yo club.